Leadership and mentality: Ghana’s biggest weaknesses were Uruguay’s major strengths

Immediately Andre Dede Ayew’s 18th-minute penalty got saved by goalkeeper Sergio Rochet, Mohammed Kudus run up to him, patted him on the back perhaps with the message, let’s keep going.

Afterwards, he turned to his teammates most of whom had their heads down in disappointment to gesture and pass on a silent yet loud message: come on guys.

On the bench, Asante Kotoko’s Ibrahim Danlad had jumped to the technical area and joined Otto Addo to seemingly try to reignite some spirit into the down-spirited players.

Interestingly however, the players on the bench also had their heads down in anguish over the missed opportunity.

Kudus and Danlad’s effort could not work the magic as the Black Stars 'died' and unlike Jesus who resurrected after three days, never resurrected.

That moment became the defining moment for the Black Stars.

The team slumped and never recovered.

The vivacity, vigour and spirit of determination with which the Black Stars began the game plummeted to a level similar to Ghana’s currency against the United States dollar. And just as the cedi has failed to rise, the Black Stars also failed to bounce back.

Whereas the Black Stars got deflated, lost and wandered like illegal migrants travelling through the desert to Qatar, Uruguay who started the mind games days before the Matchday galvanized themselves and sensing the fragility of the mentality of the Ghana team, went all out and what happened in the next 8 minutes was a Uruguayan goal from De Arrascaet.

For a team that needed just a draw to qualify, not even a goal-down could sparkle some life into the Black Stars. The players looked lost on the pitch and the Uruguayans through the same De Arrascaet who latched onto an incredible Luis Suarez flick extended their lead.

That goal was the final nail in the coffin for the Black Stars. From there on, they looked clueless, disinterested and from all indications had given up. That was the first half with a draw still enough to carry them through but they had thrown in the towel already and it was a matter of how many more goals an average and not too exciting Uruguayan side was going to score.

When a team is in such moments, they need leaders and strong characters to step but unfortunately for Ghana, the players who were supposed to be the drivers and provide inspiration crawled into their shells and never came back.

As has been revealed by Andre Ayew, he had lost his godson and was still in grieving mood which begs the question why couldn’t he tell the coach to excuse him for the games so that he mourns his beloved?

Again, for all the talks about his inspirational leadership, Andre Ayew’s Black Stars have failed to produce any inspirational story. Since 2019, when then coach, Kwasi Appiah handed him the role, the team has failed woefully in three competitions. The 2019 AFCON ended in a round of 16 exit. His second tournament produced Ghana’s worst performance in AFCON history and the 2022 World Cup is a fresh story that needs no reminder.

Thomas Partey’s puzzling case cannot be overemphasized. His impact on the team is akin to what the much-hyped 750million dollars Afrexim Bank loan had on the strength of the Ghana cedi in August. Close to nothing!

Daniel Amartey is the most experienced of Ghana’s defensive line up and he himself had resigned to fate and was rather focused on ensuring that Uruguay do not qualify.

“They need a goal now, we have to defend for ourselves so that if we can't go, they don't go". Social media users will say “Wei!”

And Jordan Ayew. Has he ever been a leader?

But this is not surprising, is it? No! Such character traits are symptomatic of new and emerging teams and it is only a matter of time before the new Black Stars find their own leaders who will stand up in such situations.